Mastering Time-Based Anesthesia Billing: A Guide to Boost Accuracy and Revenue

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  Anesthesia billing is a unique and intricate component of medical billing that differs significantly from other specialties. Unlike procedures billed on a per-service basis, anesthesia is often billed based on the duration of the service—making time-based billing a critical factor in accurate reimbursement. Let’s break down what time-based anesthesia billing entails and how practices can optimize their billing processes to avoid costly errors and delays. What is Time-Based Anesthesia Billing? Time-based anesthesia billing involves calculating charges based on the total time the anesthesiologist spends with a patient. This typically includes: Preoperative preparation Administration and maintenance of anesthesia Post-anesthesia care until the patient is no longer under the anesthesiologist’s care The billing formula generally looks like this: Total Units = Base Units + Time Units + Modifying Units Base Units : Determined by the specific surgical procedure perfor...
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E/M Coding Basics for Internal Medicine

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Evaluation and management is the most important part of the practice for an internist and coding for these visits can have an important effect on the bottom line of a practice. The decision about what level to bill an evaluation and management code is rarely clear to most physicians. In order to determine what code to select for an evaluation and management procedure, it helps to first learn the elements of a code. Once you understand the elements and how they come together to create the level, it can be a lot easier to select a code with confidence. In this article, we will focus on the documentation standards for evaluation and management codes: 

 
Chief Complaint
 
Every evaluation and management visit should start with a chief complaint - some kind of reason why the patient needs to be seen. Only a simple explanation is needed, it may be “cough” “1-year recheck of diabetes” or “nausea since Tuesday.” The chief complaint is required in order to establish medical necessity, a fundamental element of the Medicare program and a required element for billing this series of codes for the private sector as well. 

If you want to read the complete blog then click below: E/M Coding Basics for Internal Medicine


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